July 11 and 17, 2001
© 2001 Grant M. Gallup
Benedict: Proverbs 2:1-9
Psalm 34: 1-8
Luke 14:27-33
William White: Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 92:1-4,11-14, or 84:7-12
John 21:15-17
When I started to write notes for this homily, a fellow priest stopped by to stay overnight and when, after seeing to his comfort I excused myself to write, he asked, "What's it about?" I replied, "About two Anglicans: Benedict and William White." He laughed and, getting the point, said: "Ah, yes!" For our Anglican Communion has been described as being one large Benedictine Comunity, a Benedict Experiment. From the beginning, its liturgies have been in "a language under-standed of the people", its Common Prayer and Scripture translated and put into the hands of the people, its daily and seasonal round of prayer built on Benedictine models. Benedict was the founder of Western monasticism as we know it now, but also of a religious atmosphere that trusted laity to be capable of doing worship and the work of the Church. At the time of Benedict's reformation, the "spirituality" as we say now, the "religion" as they said then, was turned into a popular movement. Monks and Nuns are still called "religious", for they are bound, tied (religio) to a Rule of Life and Prayer. The hours of prayer which previously had been required only of the clergy and special communities, were by our Reformers later distilled and put within the reach of all. Benedict's own Rule, written in the year 540, was itself based on older orders, but his contribution was to make the rules human, with respect for personality and individual capacity: four hours of prayer, five hours of reading, six hours of work, an hour for eating, and eight hours for sleep. The Psalter was to be recited or sung in common once in the week, and there were vows of stability (stay where you are planted), conversion (amending your lifestyle), and obedience (listening) to the community where you found yourself. Turning of the heart to Wisdom, the application of the mind to truth, the deep connections of wisdom and justice, the deep connections of prayer and daily work, the solidarity of contemplation with action, of discernment and duty, of faith and fair dealing--all this is "Benedictine" in its soul and spirit.
Benedict was a lay person; he was never ordained, and saw no reason to be. He died standing up, receiving the eucharist, supported on the arms of two of his monks, an appropriate posture for him who taught us that Orare est Laborare. To Pray is to Work. . Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury, was a Benedictine, sent to England by Pope Gregory in 597, not fifty years after Benedict's death. Their spirit pervaded the sceptered isle, and is still our inheritance today. It has in our own generation spilled over generously into the nonepiscopal denominations of north America and Britain, and I can now furnish the oratory at Casa Ave Maria with the Presbyterian book of daily prayer, with its four offices daily and a Vigil for Sundays, with rubrics allowing the burning of incense, the blessing of holy water, the lighting of a Paschal Candle, the Sign of the Cross, and the Kiss of Peace. Benedict would be pleased. William White, astonished.
William White was the first Presiding Bishop (Primate, Metropolitan) of the "episcopal" church in the United States, and is in direct apostolic succession from the ancient Catholic bishops and doctors of the Great Church. He travelled to London in 1770 to be consecrated bishop of Philadelphia by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of Bath and Wells, and the bishop of Peterborough. He returned to become the First Citizen of Philadelphia, George Washington's pastor, the friend of Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush and all the others. He was the first Chaplain of the Continental Congress, Chaplain of the United States Senate until 1800, and Presiding Bishop until 1836 (about the time that the Catholic movement began). He ordained Absalom Jones to be the first African American priest in the United States, the man who founded St Thomas African Episcopal church in Philadelphia and was known as the Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church. It seems appropriate that we have chosen the first chapter of Jeremiah for William White's day in our calendar: "I appointed you a prophet to the nations", for he accepted the appointment, with humility, but knew its enormous significance. . He was a disciplined person--his own views on ordination inclined to presbyterianism--that presbyters were really also bishops, but unlike John Wesley, he never took it upon himself to make his personal heresy into a public schism.
You can visit William White's house when you visit Philadelphia, for it's a part of the National Park Service now. It's an instructive thing to do--the house is gracious and modest, and his library is there: he was a well-read man, with the first edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on his shelf. On the wainscoting woodwork around his bedroom, the restorers have found scorch marks where he laid his cigar butts when he smoked in his privacy. I poked about when I went there, and saw that he had a nice little wine cellar, too. A thoroughly human and practical man, a scholar and seeker for wisdom and justice, as the reading from Proverbs describes the just man, the righteous person.
Benedict and William White, both called by Jesus to take up their crosses and follow Jesus. Each has a different cross, a different calling, yet both respond to Jesus' invitation to count the cost of Christian discipleship and to give up all (sometimes that includes our personal opinions) to follow Him. Jesus teaches us that it is not like club membership, with annual dues, but that it is "for keeps" to be one of his. He asks us that we draw up our "presupuesto", our estimate, our budget, of what it will cost us (rather, what is the limit that we will spend) for the project. Don't make yourselves a laughingstock by your miscalculations of what it will cost you to be in his company, Jesus warns us in the gospel. "None of you can be my disciples unless you give up your possessions." And maybe what possesses you. Did you get that?.
Jesse Jackson was once asked if he was angry that he had not been asked to be a vice-presidential candidate, at least, for the Democrats whose party he saved from a shameful death. He said, in measured tones, "No. I am too controlled, too clear, too mature to be angry." Self-control, clarity, that is to say, having an unclouded vision, a direct view, a single eye, and maturity--being grown up about who we are and where we're going---that the agenda of the Reign of God is central--these are also simply the vows of dedication, of "spirituality"(better say, religion) for our own time. They mean we will count the cost of our involvement and not be surprised at how expensive it is to be a Christian. Salt, like religion, is good--but if salt has lost is taste, how can its saltiness be restored? In our time, we think it is by changing its name to "spirituality" or "No-Salt Seasoning."
Jesus worked Peter over pretty thoroughly in his prayer breakfast with the disciples after the daybreak appearance on the shore of the lake named for the Emperor, Tiberias. "Simon," he said to him, "Simon Johnson" -- i.e., Son of John -- reverting to his name from home, "Do you love me more than these? " Primacy is the question here, or rather the answer--John's gospel emphasizes the foundation of leadership in the Church as commissioned and orderly--not taken or usurped. Affirmative--"You know that I love you." And Jesus' commission is pastoral: "Feed my sheep." Three times, to correspond to the three Denials that Peter had made before the rooster laughed at him, Jesus demands commitment, not just correct catechetical answers. Jesus here gives his own pastoral office ('my sheep') in the Church to Peter, based on his threefold re-commitment to be a pastor. The Episcopal Church of William White's time, beset in the American colonies by a deep set (and indeed justified) suspicion of Episcopacy and Empire, struggled its way out of the vest pocket of the ruling class, and is still so struggling, to give a witness to an older way than schism and sectarianism, from a "taller town than Rome," to a Church that had organic connections to the Apostles, to a faith and praxis that is the same as that of Simon Peter, and Benedict of Nursia.
The prayer for William White's day in "Lesser Feasts and Fasts" addresses the Lord "who in a time of turmoil and confusion raised up your servant William White . . . that he might lead your Church into ways of stability and peace" and asks the Lord to also now "give us wise and faithful leaders." Stability was high on Benedict's list of virtues, too, and the prayer for his day asks that following Benedict's example, we may walk with loving and willing hearts in the school of service." These companion virtues of stability and schooled service are the permanent legacy to our religion of our two "lesser" saints of major sanctity. Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.
GRANT GALLUP
CASA AVE MARIA
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA C.A.
gallup@tmx.com.ni
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